JUNE 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s GDP grew by 2.6% in Q1 2016, driven by an increase in mining and construction activity, the Georgian Statistics Committee, Geostat, said. Large infrastructure projects have boosted Georgia’s GDP growth, which is still below the government’s expectation of full-year growth of 3%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – UMS, a mobile company jointly owned by the Uzbek government and Russia’s MTS, said it had launched 4G services in Tashkent, upgrading the capital city’s data connectivity. Competitors Ucell, part-owned by Telia Company, and Beeline, a subsidiary of Russia’s Vimpelcom, have already launched 4G services.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government said it will launch the Angren-Pap railway service from July, opening the longest tunnel in Central Asia. The project, completed in the past few months, cost $1.6b and was partly funded by Chinese and World Bank loans. Uzbek President Islam Karimov and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping inaugurated the new tunnel during a ceremony in Tashkent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 16/17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF approved two loans to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, part of a three-year plan to support macroeconomic reforms. It loaned $22m to Armenia, where it supported a controversial tax reform that received a first parliamentary approval on June 15. The IMF also gave a $13m loan to Kyrgyzstan and lauded the government’s measures to boost tax revenues and cut spending.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD said it issued a 107m lari ($50.2m) bond in Georgia, the second lari-denominated public bond issued by the bank. The five-year bond has an initial yield of 6.45% and will be listed on the Georgian Stock Exchange. The EBRD launched its first domestic bond in Georgia in March 2014. The value of the original two-year bond was 50m lari (around $30m at the time).
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – German driver Nico Rosberg won the first F1 Grand Prix in Baku. President Ilham Aliyev wanted to host the Grand Prix to boost the profile of Azerbaijan. His critics, though, accused him of wasting money and hosting an expensive vanity project while Azerbaijan’s economy shrinks.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Yakub Salimov, former Tajik interiorminister and renowned warlord and smuggler, was released from jail after serving a 13-year sentence for plotting a coup in the 1990s.Mr Salimov, one of President Emomali Rakhmon’s biggest opponents, was charged in 1998 but fled the country. He was finally detained in Russia in 2003 and later extradited to Tajikistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom said it agreed a gas supply deal with a private Georgian distributor, Gasko+, stirring criticism in Georgia’s Parliament. Under the deal, agreed on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Gazprom will sell 100m cubic metres/year to Gasko+. Georgian MPs have said that the deal risks circumventing the current intergovernmental agreement that allows Georgia to import 10% of the gas Russia sends to Armenia through its territory.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
JUNE 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – British Virgin Island-registered Chaarat Gold said it received a two- year extension from the Kyrgyz government to present results for a gold mine it is exploring in north-west Kyrgyzstan. Now, Chaarat has to present a detailed development proposal for the mine by the end of 2018. The company completed a feasibility study for the mine, Chaarat’s only asset, in February.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
ALMATY, JUNE 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ilya Ilin, a sporting hero in Kazakhstan after winning a weightlifting gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012, has been banned from the Olympics in Rio later this year after more evidence emerged that he had taked performance enhancing drugs.
The new evidence apparently showed that he took the drugs for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. This comes on top of other evidence that showed he took drugs at the London Olympics in 2012.
Three other Kazakh weightlifters — Svetlana Podobedova, Maia Maneza, Zulfiya Chinshanlo — have also been found guilty of doping at the London 2012 Olympics.
Kazakhstan won seven gold medals at the London Olympics, its best ever haul. Four of these medals were in weightlifting.
Mr Ilin has denied the drug-taking charges and instead said a change in how the samples are taken and tested was to blame for an incorrect positive test.
News of his suspension spread across Kazakhstan, shocking and angering people. Kazakh politicians lined up to give him their support.
“Whatever the decision taken on the athlete Ilya Ilin, he has earned our support as a leading sportsman and patriot of Kazakhstan,” said Kassym Jomart-Tokayev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Senate.
And it was a similar story from ordinary Kazakhs.
Aizhan, a resident of Almaty, said that he had uploaded Ilin’s picture on to his Facebook site as a show of support. He said: “Honestly, I am very upset with this scandal and even more with how it is covered by foreign media. I believe his words.”
Bolat Mukashev, who works in the public sector, said: “I am very upset and support Ilya. The whole country believed in him and now this. Of course there is no smoke without fire but nobody denies that this is a trap.”
For Kazakhstan, the seven gold medals won at the London Olympics were a huge boost to their national pride and self-image. It had been part of the government’s policy to promote Kazakhstan through sport. It recruited weightlifters from China and tennis players and athletes from Russia to boost its cause.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)
